Heart Disease: genes vs. lifestyle

Many thanks to Jerome Burne for alerting me to this one. Jerome sent me a paper to take a look at and then I spotted it reported in the media a couple of days later. The full paper can be seen here.

The general message in the media was a positive one: “Even with a ‘bad genetic hand,’ study says healthy lifestyle can cut heart disease risks in half”. Science Daily reported similarly: “Following a healthy lifestyle can greatly reduce genetic heart attack risk”.

The paper asked an important research question: We know that both genetic and lifestyle factors contribute to a person’s individual risk of heart disease, but can genetic factors be offset by a healthy lifestyle?

Let’s see....